Interpreters, Translators, and the Spoken Word in the Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade to Brazil and Cuba

Abstract

Interpreters and translators played a central role in the transatlantic slave trade in the nineteenth century. Some helped traffickers. Others aided in the suppression of the slave trade. On land, Mixed Courts of Justice for the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (1819–71) employed interpreters and translators. Courts in Havana and Rio de Janeiro along with seven other Courts situated throughout the Atlantic Basin heard more than six hundred cases and “liberated” some 100,000 Africans taken off captured slave vessels. At sea, interpreters interviewed enslaved Africans on board captured slave ships to provide information to British naval officers. Numerous interpreters and translators were Africans or African descendants. Using language skills and knowledge of the Atlantic world, these “Atlantic Creoles” defended personal freedoms and the human rights of others during the Age of Revolutions (1760–1850). Two episodes are noted in which enslaved blacks spoke fluent Eng lish as a means to convince British and United States officials that they merited immediate emancipation.

Slave resistance and the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade to Brazil in 1850

“…African slaves and freedpersons laboring in towns and villages along the coast understood well that the actions of the British Squadron challenged powerful individuals and merchant houses that profi ted from a long established international trading system. Several aided in suppression eff orts, for example providing information and translation skills to British commanders and crews (Graden, 2011).…”

Tricks of the Slave Trade

“…See alsoBosma & Cutty-Machado 2012;Putnam 2006; Scott & Hébrard 2012. 5 On the idea of "conversation" in the development of trading skills and economic networks seeGraden 2011;Hancock 1998 and2009. Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2020 11:17:18PM via free access…”